


Miscommunication with Avocado

by Neigedens



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:16:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neigedens/pseuds/Neigedens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You allow a wide grin to seep onto your face. It’s a nasty grin, the kind you can see yourself pulling out in your fantasies about being a badass crime boss or gangster or some dumb shit like that. It’s the kind of smile that would be the last thing a toady sees before you decide to introduce him to a pair of cement shoes. Yeah. That’d be pretty sweet.</p><p>As it is, what you mostly see from day to day is a lot of paperwork. And paperwork does not respond well to being nastily grinned at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miscommunication with Avocado

**Author's Note:**

> Written for HSWC 2013, for the bonus round. The prompt and the original fic in the thread are [here.](http://hs-worldcup.dreamwidth.org/3493.html?thread=855717#cmt855717)

_“You're no help," he told the lime. This was unfair. It was only a lime; there was nothing special about it at all. It was doing the best it could._  
-Neil Gaiman, _Anansi Boys_

The Derse Employee Handbook doesn't say much about the duties of a courtyard droll. In fact, the Derse Employee Handbook doesn't say much of anything, since it's a haphazard collection of random facts about castle personnel and not-so-subtle digs towards Her Majesty the Black Queen. You slapped it together one day in a fit of passive-aggressive rage. Your brand of passive-aggression has a lot more cursing than most people's, but still.

At any rate, no matter how non-specific the Handbook was, you're fairly certain that the duties outlined therein do not include anything close to what this doofus in a dumb hat is trying to give you. Sitting behind your desk, you lean over a perilously leaning stack of papers to look down at the sandwich being held up by a courtyard droll. Or rather, _the_ Courtyard Droll, since budget cuts have reduced the courtyard droll staff to just one.

"What?" you snap.

"It's lunch," says the Droll.

"I don't take lunch in the office," you say, and turn back to your papers. Yet the Droll remains. "Get out," you say, baring the full set of your pearly whites. You pride yourself on your excellent teeth. If anything were to happen to any one of them you don't know what you'd do. Stab something, probably. 

"I can't, sir," says the Droll.

"Why not?"

"I'm under orders."

" _Whose_ orders?" you say, leaning forward with a snarl.

The Droll shrugs. Even the very slight movement threatens to upend the structural integrity of his hat. Just looking at the hat makes you want to gag. Makes you want to pull out all of your perfect teeth one by one. Still, part of you is satisfied. You see what this is now. It's another elaborate bullshit game from her Lord High Bitchiness. You can play ball with this. You fold your hands and allow a wide grin to seep onto your face. It's a nasty grin, the kind you can see yourself pulling out in your fantasies about being a badass crime boss or gangster or some dumb shit like that. It's the kind of smile that would be the last thing a toady sees before you decide to introduce him to a pair of cement shoes. Yeah. That'd be pretty sweet.

As it is, what you mostly see from day to day is a lot of paperwork. And paperwork does not respond well to being nastily grinned at.

"Look," you say to the Droll, steepling your fingers. "I see what the gambit is here. Clear as night. The Queen thinks I need to _eat_. Why she concerns herself with horseshit like the health of her archagents I can't even fucking guess." The Queen actually being _concerned_ about your welfare is probably what digs the most in this whole charade. She really knows how to fucking get to you sometimes, you will give her that.

The Droll shrugs, again. The hat wobbles even more. The sight of the hat-- its garish colors, its many undulations-- causes a tight little pain to spring up behind the thick hide of your skull. You can't help but grind down on those perfect teeth of yours before going on.

"Even so. The Queen knows how I feel about this issue. All the sandwiches in the fucking Ring wouldn't move me. The hunger strike doesn't end until she re-hires the poison finders."

Budget cuts have also meant that the Queen has dispensed with the royal food tasters, (which is the preferred nomenclature, rather than poison finders.) This strikes you as madness; you're no paranoid gutless sack of shit, seeing something suspicious behind every cornice, but the Propsitian menace is everywhere. Agents have to be on their guard. Sadly, no one seems to agree with you. Even your friend the Dignitary, usually just as wary and untrusting as you, thinks this is good management and not a fucking invitation for every white shell subversive to assasinate the whole castle. (Not that that would be a big loss, you think.) To you, it's a moral issue, one the Queen refuses to make a compromise about. Surprise sur-fucking-prise.

While you've been ruminating on this, you haven't been paying much attention to the Droll, since he hasn't said anything. To the Droll, all this political shit is like birdshit is to a window washer. You doubt he gives a fuck. But when you do pay attention to him again, the reason for his silence becomes clear: the Droll has reached out and taken half of your sandwich from the plate and is eating it placidly in front of you.

You are, to put not too fine a point on it, shocked. Not many things these days can get through the thick shell that consists of your all-encompassing loathing for almost everything, but the sight of the Droll bravely tasting more than half of a possibly dangerous plate of food... it takes you aback, just a little. The pay grade for a courtyard droll is significantly lower than that of a certified, unionized food taster. You should know; you wrote the Employee Handbook, didn't you? Yet this Droll is stepping up regardless.

With a sigh, you pick up the other half of the sandwich. It tastes sharp and bitter-- you don't even want to *think* what the Droll considers as a suitable filling for a sandwich-- but it does the trick. As you finish it, you nod him out and return to work. Outwardly you are the same old pencil-pushing asshole, but inwardly...well, inwardly you're the same pencil-pushing asshole with half a sandwich in his gut, but it's a start. The Droll leaves you to it, happily oblivious to how he has risen above and beyond the call of his duty today. It struck the Droll as a good way to get half a sandwich out of that asshole Jack Noir.


End file.
